The Early Modern era: the 15th century (1 of 4)

Europe, Africa, and Asia c. 1500 (before the Americas were on the international stage) (underlying map © Google)

Introduction

Many history and art history courses begin in 15th-century Europe (1401–1500). This is because there were significant, global changes during this century, signaling a break with the previous medieval era (also called the Middle Ages, which had lasted roughly one thousand years). The 15th century (1400s) is seen as the start of what is often referred to as the “Early Modern” period (roughly 1400–1800). By labelling this era in this way, historians are using a kind of shorthand to make broad but instructive generalizations. The label is, however, problematic in that it is often used to center Europe pushing other cultures to the periphery of historical focus. Nevertheless, the term remains a useful tool.

Canteen, early 15th century (Ming dynasty, China, Jiangxi province, Jingdezhen), Jingdezhen ware, porcelain with cobalt pigment under colorless glaze, 46.9 x 41.8 x 21.3 cm (Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1958.2)

The end of the 15th century and the 16th century are sometimes called the “age of exploration,” because this period can be seen as the beginning of our modern, interconnected world. We often assume globalization is a 20th- and 21st-century phenomenon, but a close examination of the Early Modern period reveals otherwise. While the term “age of exploration” heroicizes the origins of European colonization and neglects the multidirectionality of global interactions, it can also highlight longstanding and important connections among and between cultures.

As you read, you will see there are overall patterns (trade, cultural interconnectedness, exploitation, conversion) as well as more temporally localized threads. Each of the four short essays that follow focuses on one of the four centuries that comprise the Early Modern period. They are meant to be read together and in order.

Saint Donatian (detail), Jan van Eyck, The Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele, 1436, oil on panel, 148 x 184 cm (Groeningemuseum, Bruges; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Renaissance begins

Most historians agree that the Renaissance begins around 1400. Wealth was accumulating in cities across Europe (Florence, Venice, Bruges, Ghent, Dijon, Antwerp, Seville, and Lisbon, among others) generated by manufacturing and by trade both across Europe, and with Asia and Africa. This is also the century that sees the beginnings of a European presence (in the form of military garrisons, some of which would later become centers of colonial control) in Africa and the Americas. In addition, wealthy patrons (like Philip the Good, Isabella d’Este, and Lorenzo de Medici) propelled the Renaissance, commissioning works of art for a variety of reasons. 

The Renaissance can be defined in part as the revival of a way of looking at the world called Humanism, which—at its most basic—placed renewed value on human knowledge, and the experience of this world (as opposed to focusing largely on the heavenly realm). In art for example, there is a return to representing the visible world. In the 15th century, even biblical figures and saints are depicted as more fully human than in the preceding centuries of the medieval era (though there are some notable exceptions).

View of Florence, Italy (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

In Italy (which was not yet a unified nation, but instead was made up of rival city states), we find a new historical self-consciousness that distinguishes itself from what one early Humanist called “the dark ages” (the medieval period), and confidently sees itself as a rebirth—one inspired by ancient Greek and Roman culture. [1] Highly educated and wealthy Italian rulers looked to ancient Greek and Roman literature and art as an exemplary model. The impact of ancient Greek and Roman art can be seen in the architecture of Filippo Brunelleschi, paintings by Masaccio, and sculpture by Donatello, all of whom worked in Florence.

In wealthy Northern European cities like Bruges and Brussels (today in Belgium), the Renaissance developed differently. We find oil paint used to create astoundingly realistic religious images by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, and Rogier van der Weyden.

This illustration comes from a book published by an early German printer from Augsburg, and is illustrated with seventy-three woodcuts. Here we see “Sol” or “Sun,” in Albumasar. Flores astrologiae (Augsburg: Erhard Ratdolt, November 18, 1488), image 21 (Rosenwald Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

The printing press

We know that the flow of information and images is a defining feature of our own time. This begins in mid-15th-century Germany, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the mechanical printing press (an innovation already known in East Asia). The press allowed for the production of multiples of images and texts at a fraction of the cost of hand-written manuscripts and enabled the circulation of ideas and images across long distances and across cultures. Woodcuts became the most effective method of illustrating texts made with movable type. 

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, 532–37, architects: Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Byzantine Empire falls to the Ottomans

If we look to southeastern Europe and West Asia, we find the once great Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire (it had once controlled much of West Asia, North Africa and southern and eastern Europe) had become significantly diminished. In 1453 the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople (today Istanbul), was conquered by the Ottoman army and Byzantine churches, such as Hagia Sophia, were transformed into mosques. With the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the last remnant of the ancient Roman empire was lost. The Ottoman Empire, which was Muslim, came to dominate this region on the eastern and southern edges of Europe until its collapse in 1922. 

Porcelain bowl with armorial designs and inscription, c. 1600–20 (Ming dynasty, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province) (© The Trustees of the British Museum, London)

Porcelain and lacquer

The wealthy across both West Asia and Europe coveted lustrous, thin-walled, Chinese white porcelain decorated with blue underglaze. It seemed miraculous to take clay and create something so refined. Chinese porcelain was fired at a very high temperature and utilized kaolin—a white clay found in some Chinese rivers. The method and materials proved very difficult to copy (though many tried). Chinese porcelain was made for the court, but also for export. During the Ming dynasty, potters at the famous porcelain-producing kilns of Jingdezhen, China absorbed artistic ideas from imported foreign goods and made blue and white porcelain for export across the Islamic world, and eventually for the European market (and they sometimes make an appearance in European still life paintings). But porcelain was also made in a variety of colors—this stunning red dish was intended for rituals at the Chinese imperial court dedicated to the sun. 

There are also beautiful examples of blue and white porcelain from Korea made during the Joseon dynasty. Buncheong ware (decorated with various techniques, including inlay, stamping, incision, and iron-brown underglaze) was the primary type of Joseon ceramics at the time and shows the clear influence of Chinese blue and white porcelain. 

Negoro workshop, Negoro ware ewer, second half of 16th century (Muromachi period to Momoyama period, Wakayama prefecture, Japan), lacquered wood (Portland Art Museum)

In Japan, we find vessels, like this ewer, made using the labor-intensive process of urushi lacquer. This involved collecting tree sap (which was poisonous), processing it, and applying it in many layers to a wooden surface. The lacquer creates a smooth, hard, glossy surface. And though lacquer is found in much of Southeast Asia and East Asia, Japanese lacquer is a different process, and was so treasured by the Europeans that later, when trade with Europe began, Europeans called works that were lacquered “japanned” (analogous to the way that we use the word “china” to associate ceramics with China).

Ryōanji (Peaceful Dragon Temple), dry rock garden, study and grounds, Kyoto, Japan (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Also in Japan, the importance of nature is apparent in the work of the ink painter and Buddhist monk Sesshu Toyo and in the meditative spaces of Buddhist gardens. At the Zen temple of Ryōanji in Kyoto we find a dry rock garden—a form which developed during the Muromachi period. Ryōanji consists of just fifteen stones of different sizes arranged in groups amid raked pebbles.

Christopher Columbus landing on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1492  (detail), Theodor de Bry, Christopher Columbus arrives in America, 1594, etching and text in letterpress, 18.6 x 19.6 cm (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

The beginnings of colonialism in Africa and the Americas

To appreciate the importance to Europe of trade with Asia, imagine your kitchen cupboard without cinnamon, cloves, pepper, or nutmeg. Trading these spices, and other luxury items like silk, could bring enormous profit. The Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, were anxious to compete with Portugal for the potential riches gained through trade with Africa and Asia. The Portuguese appeared ahead of the game—they rounded the southernmost point of Africa in 1488, and established a sea route to India in 1497. The Portuguese Cantino Planisphere, made in 1502, presents a diagram of the world as available for Europeans to claim and dominate.

Cantino Planisphere, 1502, ink and pigment on vellum, 102 x 218 cm (Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena)

The Italian (from Genoa) Christopher Columbus believed that the globe of the earth was smaller than others estimated, and convinced Ferdinand and Isabella that he could reach Asia by sailing west. So, in the last decade of the century, in 1492, Columbus set sail west in search of a new trade route to Asia, but instead landed first in the Bahamas and Cuba and then Hispaniola (today the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic). The word “Indian” derives from the Indies, and was coined after Christopher Columbus bumped into the Caribbean islands believing, mistakenly, that he had found India.

Santiago Matamoros (or Saint James the Moor Slayer) was the patron saint of the conquest and colonization of the Americas by Spain. He was associated with conquest long before the Spaniards arrived in the Americas, since he was believed to have miraculously helped Spanish Christians during the so-called “Reconquest” of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) from Muslims (which started after 711). Santiago on Horseback, 16th century, polychromed and gilded wood (Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City)

Aside from a desire for gold and spices, the Spanish monarchs had another motive—a religious one. Since the 8th century, Muslim dynasties controlled much of the Iberian Peninsula (today Spain and Portugal). In 1492, after centuries of warfare (part of an effort commonly known as the Reconquest), Ferdinand and Isabella’s Christian armies defeated the last remaining independent Muslim state in Western Europe. 1492 was also the year that Columbus set sail, and it was the year that Spain expelled or forced the conversion to Christianity of all Jews and Muslims within its borders. The zealous conversion of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and the establishment of colonies there largely mirrored the strategies of the Reconquest.

The often-used phrase that Europe discovered America masks the brutal history of colonial rule that Columbus’s voyages initiated and that resulted in the widespread destruction of Indigenous cities and attempts to eradicate Indigenous cultures (in part through conversion to Christianity), efforts that would continue well into the modern era.

Capital city of the Mexica (detail), Hernán Cortés, “Cortés’ 1524 Map of Tenochtitlan,” in Praeclara Ferdinādi Cortesii de Noua maris Oceani Hyspania narratio […] (Nuremberg, Germany: Friedrich Peypus, 1524; Newberry Library, Chicago)

Three spoons, 16th century (Edo or Owe culture, Benin, Bini-Portuguese style), in the collection of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany by 1555, ivory, 25, 24.8, and 25.7 cm long (Museo di Anthropologia e Etnologia, Florence)

Meanwhile, the Portuguese established trading colonies along the west coast of Africa. They saw local carvers making exquisite goods in ivory (which they referred to as “white gold”) and recognized their potential as luxury objects to be sold in Europe. Soon ivory spoons made in Africa were part of elite life in places like Lisbon (in Portugal). Early encounters with Europeans were often recorded in African art and ivories from the Kingdom of Benin depict Portuguese soldiers. In Portugal, the Tower of Belém was built to protect the entrance to Lisbon’s port and celebrates the expedition led by Vasco da Gama who established a maritime trade route from Portugal to India. 

Kilwa along the Swahili coast (underlying map © Google)

Once they rounded the Cape of Good Hope (the southernmost tip of Africa), the Portuguese sailed up the east coast of Africa in search of gold and found it at Kilwa, an island in what is now Tanzania. The Swahili civilization occupied coastal East Africa beginning of the 9th century through until the 18th century and Kilwa became rich by controlling the trade in gold exported from Zimbabwe. The island was an important center of Indian Ocean trade, as can be seen in the fragments of Chinese ceramics embedded in the walls of a mosque there. 

Even this very brief overview of the 15th century demonstrates that by the end of the century, the world was a very different place than it had been at the beginning of the century. Muslims and Jews had been expelled from Spain, and the Ottomans were on the borders of Europe. Asia, Africa, and Europe were more interconnected via sea routes that enabled trade, and for Europeans, the Americas now offered vast new territories filled with people and raw materials to convert and exploit.